Individuals and organizations often need to meet the requirements of various regulations and other authorities. For example, federal regulations may specify how and when organizations should store health, education, business, tax, and/or financial records. These regulations may place strict limits on when these organizations may delete, destroy, lose, or tamper with their records. In particular, regulations may require organizations to store records in original and unaltered form for a specified period of time. Moreover, in an abundance of caution, organizations may voluntarily store these records in unaltered form for longer periods of time than the regulations require. Meanwhile, the requirement to store large volumes of records in unaltered or other form places a heavy burden on the organizations in terms of cost, storage, and maintenance.
Moreover, individuals and organizations also often preserve the same or different records for business purposes. These business records need not necessarily comply with regulatory requirements, and the time periods for the requirements may have already expired. Nevertheless, in an abundance of caution, organizations may preserve records for business purposes, in an unaltered format that still satisfies the regulatory requirements. In other words, the organizations may needlessly, or inefficiently, store records for longer than required by regulations and business needs, or in formats that occupy more storage space than required. More generally, the organizations may fail to distinguish between storage for regulatory purposes and for business purposes, and thereby fail to tailor their storage systems to accommodate both individually. The instant disclosure identifies a need, therefore, for improved methods for storing data in multiple stages.